joegoda | HeartStone, Part two

Later that night, as Gwion's campfire crackled merrily out on the dock, and he lie with his feet toward it and looked out over the river with it's shiny spots of ripply ripples, he thought about the waitress; he thought about Rebecca. Fire there was in her, he reckoned, damped down by the damp imaginings of this place. He admired the way she had talked to him, straight out and upfront about what was what, challenging his belief and asking him to prove it. He liked the way her brown eyes flashed, and her brown hair flowed, the lines of her face and the furrow of her brow. There was something about the curve of her lips that made his heart go thump, thump, just a little faster than usual. He was a man that had seen many things that made his heart go thump, thump, just a little faster, and it had been a very long time since that had happened, a very long time indeed. Until tonight.

He had originally gone to the pub to see what was what, who was who, and where was where. Perhaps a bit of the wet o' my whistle, tell a few stories, gather a few tales, and back on the road again tomorrow.

It was her, it was Rebecca that had made him want to show off, which was something he swore was something he would never do again since the last time. It was how he ended up in the river and... well, that's a story for another time.

He sat looking at the stars and thinking about his place. He did not know if he had ever seen such a lifeless place, all gray of thinking and lacking in the colors of dream and imagination. Every tale he had heard in passing in the pub had been from long ago and far away, much before the teller had come to this place. It made him wonder if the Grims had come here too. A small shudder passed through him, remembering the last time he had come across those killers of joy, those stealers of dreams.

The Grims. His name for them, as they didn't have any other name he knew of. Possibly the SomethingBads, but that name just wasn't lyrical enough. The Grims were nothing he had ever seen, only nothings that he had seen the effect of. Sad memories came and went in the quieter, more somber parts of his memory. The burning in his nose and the small ache behind his eyes and the few tears that ran down his cheeks might have come from the campfire smoke, but he knew better, and even if he had said so to anyone else, he would and could not lie to himself. A great sigh ran through him. "Ah well... so much is lost dust.", he said to nobody, and was surprised when nobody answered him.

"What is so much lost dust?", came a musical voice from behind him, from the direction of the Village.

So strongly was he startled that his leap took him completely off his feet and he twirled round and round in the air before landing and facing his questioner.

"Um, um..", was all he could say. It was of course, Rebecca, dressed as she had been but also in night cloak to keep the damp evening air away.

"I didn't really want to disturb you, really I didn't, sir."

"Gwion, please, miss", he said with incredible gentleness.

"Gwion, then. And I'm Rebecca, though most here call me Beck."

"Beck it is, though I do like Rebecca so much more. No, then, Beck won't do, for you are far, far to large a soul to be confined to just four little letters. I shall have to call you Rebecca, as Rebecca is a name to be reckoned with, a name that carries a shield and a sword hidden among the seas."

She laughed, a merry sound coming from deep in her throat. It wasn't one of those high tinkly laughs, it was one of those that reminded of rivers flowing over mountains, strong, mystical, and possibly very deep.

"So you do have a sense of humor", Gwion said.

"Oh, we all do, Sir Gwion.", she replied. "And though Gwion is a lovely name, it truly is, it reminds me too much of 'Mamma, the babies cryin'."

"That is why I go by Taliesin in many of the lands I've been in. Most people find it easier to say, and as you point out, it is much harder to mispronounce"

"I like Gwion well enough though," she said, "so I will call you by it, as it is short and reminds me of that magical ale you made. It simply rolls off the tongue, you see." There was the sort of not unpleasant pause that occurs just as the planets decide which direction they are going to rotate, and then "May I share your fire?", she asked, a bit shyly.

"Of course you may! I would be honored. But... wouldn't the rest of the villagers wonder what a single young woman, especially one as pretty as you, would be doing out here all alone with a stranger as strange as myself?"

Rebecca moved to the other side of the small fire and sat carefully, tucking her legs under her and arranging her night cloak so that she would be kept warm where the firelight didn't touch. She was framed by the forking river sparkling like diamonds and gave her an extra layer of beauty, seeming to dress her in finest sparklies, and the stars seemed to settle around her hair, as if she were wearing a Universal tiara. The firelight danced off her eyes, giving them depth, and it played against her lips and cheeks, adding more rose than was already there.

"Oh", she laughed again, "they fair shoved me out the door to come after you once you had left. Just about everyone saw how you looked at me, everyone except ol' blind Jack, of course. Even he though said there was something different in how you talked to me than when you talked to everyone else. He said there was something softer. I told him he was full of it and to shove off"

Gwion laughed at this and smiled broadly. "And who am I to argue with such a crowd? But still... out here? All alone? With me? Aren't you afraid?"

"Oh no!", she answered. "I'm perfectly comfortable, though perhaps just a bit nervous. You are an attractive man, after all. But afraid? No, sir, that I am not. You see, if there was any... er... untoward activities from your part, you would find yourself sprouting more quills than a porcupine. I am not, really and truly, alone."

"Ah", Gwion said, with eyebrows raised and smile frozen on his face. Slowly as the movement of the heavens he turned his head to look back over his shoulder. They were there, hidden in the shadows, her guardians. He couldn't be sure of how many there were, but there were there, sure enough.

"We were wondering, Gwion," and she struggled to not smile or laugh when she said his real name, "why it is that you are here, and what it is that you came looking for. Which is really the same question, I suppose. Maybe the first question would be how is it that you came to be floating on the river, naked and singing." She thought a second. "Yes, that would be the question to ask first."

"Ah. That would be a story in and of itself", he replied. "You see... I'm a storyteller by trade. Not a terribly good trade, but a very good storyteller. I tell stories and get by doing a little bit of magics here and again, some juggling, entertainment sort of things."

"And you came to be floating on the river naked because..." and she let the answer drift off for him to fill in the blanks.

"I came to be floating on the river naked because... because it was such a nice day I decided to take a swim, and you can't very well go swimming in your only clothes, so I put them in my bag."

"You decided to take a swim."

"Yes"

"I see"

"Good"

"That, of course, begs the question, dear Gwion, from where did you swim? There is no village nor town within leagues of here."

"Did you just call me 'dear'? Oh my.", he mused.

"Don't detract from the tale, dear. From where did you swim?"

"Ah, well, that. Well, you see, I was on a ship, headed somewhere far down the river, headed to cross the stormy sea. When I decided to take a swim, well.. the ship decided that they would just let me go. And that was that.

"That was that."

"Yes"

"I see"

"Good"

"We've done this before"

"Yes, and we'll probably do it many times before we're done"

She had propped her elbows on her knees, and had laced her fingers together, and she was looking intently at him. Her gaze seemed to burn in him, and he could feel that thump, thump start up again.

"How many days ago was that, when you decided to take your swim?", she asked.

"Oh, let's see. Today is, erm.. umm.. what day is today?", he asked back.

"Thursday.", she said.

"Oh, well then, I went swimming on Tuesday." he answered her.

"Tuesday?", she exclaimed, jerking her head as if she were a puppet on a string and raising her eyebrows and furrowing them at the very same time, which can be quite a trick. "You've been swimming for two days?"

"Two days? Oh no, my dear Rebecca. I went swimming on Tuesday 3 weeks ago."

"Three we...." she nearly yelled this out, stopped, but she let the incredulity show on her face, and her body. She said next in more hushed tones, "Three weeks? You've been floating for three weeks?"

"Well... not constantly. The skin develops quite a pucker after a while and when that happens, and I don't mind telling you one bit, when that happens I just feel downright silly."

"How did you survive?" Three weeks simply sounded impossible. "Why didn't you stop at some other village or town?"

"It's easy to survive on the river. It is water after all, and there were plenty of fish, you know. I mean, it IS a river. As to why I didn't stop at some other village, I just didn't see any reason. I was quite content to go floating, and I very well may have just continued on my merry way, if I had not seen your little valley here."

"And you just decided that you simply had to stop here."

"Yes."

"I see."

"Good."

"Not again! Why did you decide that you had to stop here? Here, of all places? We have nothing here to offer anyone, and many of us have even talked about moving on to somewhere else. Of course, nobody ever does, but they talk about it."

"And that, my darling Rebecca, she of the shining eyes and captivating lips and delicate hands is exactly why I had to stop here!" At that he rose, taking the stage, as any ham will recognize. "This town was perfect for what I have to offer. I mean, it was so grey, so drab, so colorless! Even the trees droop from depression here, even the grass seemed lazy, and I must tell you that it is very, very hard for grass to appear lazy as it does nothing but lie around all day and night and day again."

Rebecca stood, and he could see that he had touched something just a bit dangerous in her eyes. Perhaps he had spoken a bit too far. It is one thing to talk poorly about your own village, but it is quite another thing to have someone else talk about your village altogether.

In a tight voice, tight as barbed wire, tight as a high wire, she asked, "And you came here why?"

In an incredibly calm voice, as if talking to a large animal with even larger teeth, he gently said, "Because I want to fix it.", which was not the right thing to say. He could tell from the flare in her eyes, which quite obviously were, indeed, the windows to her soul and emotions. He added quickly, "I want to bring more color here than is already here. I came to trade dreams, to tell tales, to hear tales. Then, when my time here is done, I would have left, and hopefully I would have left your village a bit better than when I first came."

"I see", she said and waited and dared him to say 'Good' or anything at all. Instead, he simply faced her across the fire, his hands open to say 'I am quite harmless and please do not eat me with your very large teeth and your eyes the size of dinner plates', and didn't say anything at all. He waited on her to make up her mind to eat him or not.

It can be debated at this point if Gwion would have minded if she had swallowed him whole. He was already in so deep that he was afraid he would never swim out on his own, and it was only by sheer force of will that he was ignoring it and all the changes to the story that was about to enfold.

Instead of swallowing him whole, Rebecca sat back down, night cloak tucked under her legs, put her elbows under her knees and her perfect hands arranged on either side of her chin to hold her head up, and she said the words that he had heard, oh, so many times before, but never, ever, from a face that he would re-write the whole of history for.

"Tell me a story, please"

And so he did. He told a grim tale, full of fear and bravery, full of happiness and sorry. He told a story of life, of love, of fear and of failure. He told the story of the Grims, those horrible things and thoughts that stole dreams from the young and hopes from the aged. He told the story of a man who had watched his entire family murdered, and felt he had lost all hope. He threw himself into the river, the very river that was at Rebecca's back, and he floated in a daze till he came to a valley. The river threw him out, and the man lived, though he may not have wanted to, in that valley until the coming of a odd fellow, bearing laughter, and companionship, and news. It was the news that his family had survived after all. The lost family and the man were reunited, and they all came to live in the valley that the man had come to call home.

Gwion told this tale to Rebecca, who had, during the telling not said a word, but had, at appropriate moments, laughed till her sides ached and cried till she felt she could cry no more.

"That was ... incredible." she said in reverent tones. "That story is known to me, though. It is the story of the founder of this valley, a man that you met tonight. The odd fellow you described was the very first shopkeeper here. His old shop can be seen from the pub. How did you come to hear the story?"

"It's one of the talents I have", he said cryptically. "I hear things, from all over. I learned the art of talking and listening at the same time. Not everyone can do it, or so I've been told. And there are some stories that I just know, they just come to me while I tell them. I do believe they tell themselves to me, and I just repeat them."

"Have you ever thought about writing them down?", she asked in all seriousness. "The way you told it was ... well... it was simply wonderful, simply magical. Though I had heard the story many times before, when you told it, I could feel the river on my face, feel the dirt under my fingers. I felt the incredible sense of loss and the incredible sense of joy. It was..." she ran out of words.

"Write? Me? Oh, my dear. I'm a story teller, not a story writer! I don't think it would translate as well onto paper. No, no, no.", he adamantly noed, "I just don't think I could be a story writer." He thought about it a few seconds more. "No. I just don't think I could."

"Ah. Well. That is a shame, then. I would not like to think that when you died, your stories, told as only you could tell them, would waste away and wither and die with you."

"And what makes you think I will die? Perhaps, like my stories, I'll just go on and on and on."

"Hmph", she hmphed, even though she had a gentle smile. "It was my understanding that everything that lives, dies. However, if you believe that you have found away around that understanding, the best of luck to you, Sir Gwion." She yawned, wide mouthed and not even ashamed of it. No covering this one, once it was started, she decided. "Oh my! I must be very tired. So, how long do you think you will be staying here?"

"As long as there are stories to be told, and tales to hear, and I'm allowed." came the answer.

She yawned again, this time catching it behind one delicate hand, and patted it away. "Goodness! Gwion, I must be going before I fall asleep and then fall into the river."

Quietly, gently, with rose petal tenderness, he said "I would never let you fall, Rebecca." The soft intensity of the words caught her by surprise. For a moment, she was speechless, and for a moment, so was he.

"Good." was all she could think to say in the moment, poor mask over her flustery blushing.

"Yes." was all he could think to say to attempt to close up the open heart he had shown her.

"All right then." In a flurry of motion and emotion, she stood, and he stood, and the flames rose as well, just because they didn't want to be left out.

She passed by him and when she did, very briefly, their hands, as if they had a life and mind of their own, as if they knew that the long life lines in their palms had already overlapped, touched. Maybe the universe saw and held that moment motionless. Perhaps the man who winds the clocks at the center of the world held the pendulum stopped for that intense flare of digital greeting of each other. Perhaps it was just that, at the moment the fingers brushed, the eyes locked, the hearts beat as one, the minds joined and agreed, and the souls all voted and came up unanimous.

"Um." he blushed.

"Er." she agreed and blushed back.

"Say.", he sayed to her, in a shy little boy type of shy voice.

"Yes?", she yessed to him, quiet as a little girl breathing on a golden dust mote.

"Would you, could you, perhaps, if it's quite all right," he started.

"Of course I would and could, with you, and it's quite all right", she finished.

"Tomorrow?"

"Yes."

"Good."

"Morning?"

"Yes, please"

"Good."

Now, it doesn't matter who said what, because they weren't really speaking. Well, they were, but they may not have been using their mouths to say the words. All that is important is that they heard each other, and they answered each other and the answer that they heard and the answer that they said all amounted to one single word - Yes.

The universe decided to let the moment go, and the man who winds the clock at the center of the world let the pendulum go and went madly whooping through his halls and corridors. Time started up again, and the hands, having done their job, congratulated each other and returned to the arms to which they, respectfully, belonged.

And you know what? Neither one of them slept the entire night long, but the night was still filled with dreams.